We're Not Responsible...

Alright guys, it's been over a month since we checked in on here.  Lots going on.

The Boston Bruins have agreed to work our new single "Welcome To Boston" in between stoppages of play during their playoff run and we're in talks with a couple other major "Boston Sports Organizations" (can't announce who yet) to start featuring the song during games as well.

We're working out the details for a music video for "Welcome To Boston" and will let you guys know as soon as we finalize the shooting schedule so the local Boston fans can come out and get involved in the video.  Until then, you can check out a great fan-created video for "Welcome To Boston" HERE.  We're also in the process of finishing the video for our follow up single "Take It" -being shot in New York City this summer.

It's the summer of music videos!

Look for our single "151" to start hitting the radio airwaves sometime in June as Radio Promo is getting ironed out this week.  We'll let you know where you'll be able to hear it first.

Stay tuned...

What's On Crash Midnight's Playlist?

In almost every interview the band does, we're asked "what stuff are you guys listening to?" or "what's on your iPod?" (if they're going the product placement route).  Here's what's on our playlists at the moment:

SHAUN SOHO: I'm always the one listening to the classic stuff - lately I've been listening to and playing a lot of tracks off of the Rolling Stones' "Exile On Mainstreet" ...we've been jamming on Sweet Virginia, Torn And Frayed, and Ventilator Blues.  I'm really into The Heavy too.  Love their sound and delivery.  "What Makes A Good Man" is what rock n' roll should be and the backup singers really make that song.  I'm into FUN, just wish they'd have lost the auto-tune in their production.  The beginning of "Some Nights" reminds me of the intro to Kansas's "Carry On My Wayward Son" ...very cool.  M83 is pretty cool too.

BO: The Clash is my go to, but I just got the Jay Reatard album - "Turning Blue" has a very cool sound.  I like M83 a lot too.  We've been listening to them for a while.  Definitely a standby at our parties.  Other than those, The Wavves and The Knife have been in heavy rotation for me lately too.

ALEX DONALDSON: Been listening to the new Electric Guest album a lot.  I like what Vintage Trouble has been doing a lot.  It's great to hear another band with a good classic sound doing so well.

TODD FRIEDMAN: As far as newer bands go, I think Vintage Trouble is one of the best new bands around. When it comes to what I listen to on a regular basis, I'll admit I'm a bit stuck in the 90's. Nirvana will always be my favorite band, hands down. But I also love punk rock! Lately, been listening to a lot of West Coast Punk. Everything from Pennywise to the Descendents to older AFI. As much as I love that style of music, I'm also a huge fan of all the great older blues guitarists: Albert King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix, etc... All of those guys were incredible players and what they each brought to the evolution of guitar player and the blues is, to me, monumental.


JIM DONALDSON: Offspring "Americana," The Mowgli's "San Francisco," RJD2, The Arctic Monkeys, New Bomb Turks

Crash Midnight's Bo Talks Bass Guitars

On the Lost in the City album I’m using a 1977 P Bass which has a nice fat sound. I picked it up at a yard sale a bunch of years ago and was able to find this beauty tucked away in the back next to an old Swingline and some wooden tennis rackets. 

 

Although I love the sound of it, if I’m being completely honest I picked it up mainly because it’s the same bass that Paul Simonon is destroying on the cover of The Clash’s London Calling album. For our next album I’m looking into using a Rickenbacker 3001 to get a bit brighter, more surf inspired sound. I know it won’t be a 25 pound behemoth like the P Bass but the sustain is still incredible. As soon as I have some new tracks recorded with it, I’ll throw some online so you guys can judge the difference for yourselves!

To All Our Fans

We wanted to use this #BackstageTuesday post to thank you guys for supporting us and spreading the word about Crash Midnight to all your friends.  This band has overcome so much adversity and opposition from shady promoters to "music industry" fast-talkers trying to get their hands in the band's pockets (much of which became inspiration for our single "Diamond Boulevard") that we wanted to take the time to dedicate this post to you, our fans and friends as we celebrated the milestone of watching our Crash Midnight Twitter roll over 100,000 followers this past weekend.

We'll try to post up a little video of some of the celebration for you guys tomorrow on #NewVideoWed to let you guys share in the party ...since we'll pretty much take any excuse to throw a party.  Our label is finishing up the promotion plan for our debut album Lost In The City and we'll have a whole lot of news about that to release to you guys here soon.  Until then, have one for us.

Rock n' F'n Roll!

-Crash Midnight

Crash Midnight Article In Australia

Click the link to check it out:
Article on Crash Midnight in AMN by Maggie Sapet

S.O.S. (Too Bad)

S.O.S. was one of the band's favorite songs to cover live.  Off of Aerosmith's second album, Get Your Wings, this one might have taken a back seat to the more famous Same Old Song And Dance or Seasons Of Wither, but we always loved the energy of SOS.  A couple of us work out some (fuzzy) memories below:

ALEX DONALDSON: "We actually covered their version of Train Kept A' Rollin off of Get Your Wings at one point too and I've always really dug playing Seasons Of Wither on acoustic when we're all just hanging out."

SHAUN SOHO: "Being a hard blues rock band from Boston, we were pretty much obligated to draw heavy influence from Aerosmith, One night we were about to go on - if I tried to guess what venue, I'd be making it up - but we were gonna open with S.O.S. and I'd been sick earlier in the week so my throat was real sore.  I was talking to the guys saying I was a little worried about hitting that high vocal part at the end of the song that night and all of a sudden somebody's older uncle who was at the show shoves me this shot of brandy like, 'hey this is a little trick that will fix you right up.' That self-medicating shot was followed by like several more before we made it to the stage.  I can't remember if it helped, but I also can't really remember the show so I guess I don't remember it not working either."

BO: "We've been talking about what cover songs we'd want to throw into the mix when we go on tour to support the new album here and S.O.S keeps coming up in the conversation.  Maybe we'll give you guys a list sometime soon of the songs we're kicking around and let you guys help us decide."

--Stay tuned here every Tuesday we'll be pulling out some inside stories or telling you guys about what's going on in the Crash Midnight camp.

Crash Midnight Shares A Few Stories From Their First Tour

Doing an interview for an Australian music magazine this week. A lot of their questions for us centered around the early days of the band and brought up some great stories.  We wanted to share a few with you guys.

During our first tour there were so many crazy stories- from Shaun Soho and Bo getting in a fight with each other in the street after a show in New York City that was only broken up when Uma Thurman (who was filming on the next street over) walked by them and quickly scurried into her trailer – to the band spending the night after a show in New Jersey at a house that was so dirty that no one dared use the filthy shower at the place the next day. Bo went out back, grabbed a garden hose and a bar of soap and proceeded to hose each of the guys in the band off one by one while smoking a cigarette in the back yard …neighbors must have loved that one.

While staying over at an apartment in Philly, a young lady took a rather intoxicated Soho back to her dorm room and as a thank you for spending the night with her, was kind enough to leave him money to buy the rest of the band breakfast in the morning. This was also during the era when guitarist, Alex Donaldson, had an old-school neon-green Nokia cell phone that he would routinely spike on the floor or against the wall at parties and laugh as it blew apart into 3 pieces, then put it back together and spike it again.

These stories are jogging more memories than we can fit into this post so we’ll have to do a few more of these just to cover that first tour.  Stay tuned next Tuesday.